IthacaLit

In the guise of a beggar, Odysseus returned to Ithaca ​

James Lasdun: A Writer’s Writer

Madeleine Beckman met with the author at a local coffee shop in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

Poet, short story writer, novelist, journalist, and now memoirist (not to mention a five-year stint in the movie making business), James Lasdun is not an academic, though he does teach at Princeton and the New School – he is a writer. Born and educated in the U.K., he has lived for many years between Upstate New York and NYC.

When reading Lasdun, whether it’s a poem or a story, this reader is left with the question – how did he do that? Or that? because he manages to put into words those sometimes neurotic, sometimes existential – and always personal musings we weave in our heads but think no one else has had that thought, feeling, or fear. And he does it elegantly, without pretense.

His most recent book, the memoir On Being Stalked: Give Me Everything You’ve Got (FSG, 2013), is about being stalked by a creative writing student. But this stalking is not simply a crush, rather it takes on dimensions, enters realms of evil that could not have been imagined pre-internet. The perpetrator herself calls it verbal terrorism. She wants everything from Lasdun and ultimately to destroy him. It is to Lasdun’s credit that he finished the book in the midst of this demonic war that even post-publication is still being waged against him.

MB:It’s been years since we last spoke. What have you been up to? JL: I’ve been preoccupied with the publication of this new book, which is unlike anything I’ve written. It has its own kind of topicality and a lot of interest from newspapers; but I’m writing fiction as well, and teaching between Princeton, the New School and the Writers Institute.

MB:How long did you work on this memoir? JL: Three years; two years to write and last year for editing. And because of the nature of the book – it went through legal reads.

MB: How did you decide to write a memoir? JL: I would have never imagined myself doing a memoir. It came out of a difficult, painful experience, and it’s still not finished. It [the stalking] totally took over my life and head. At a certain point I couldn’t think or write about anything else.

MB:Interesting that the experience overtook you and you could still write about it while in the midst of it.JL: Yes, it seems counter intuitive doesn’t it? The book has come out of the heat of the moment – a long moment, many years. It wasn’t something that would end, and it seems like it will go on forever. The idea of being in a position of ever recollecting tranquility – well I couldn’t wait for that; I needed to write about it, to manage it in some way – to manage my own psyche.

MB:How is it that you were able to see this through to the end considering the difficulty of the subject matter? JL: I don’t like having unfinished things. It’s a dangerous thing to accumulate. History is filled with disasters, writers like Malcolm Lowry who wrote Under the Volcano. He never finished anything else. The rest of his life was one project after the next with high hopes and ambitions that he would never finish. He was somewhat prone to insanity. If you have a habit like that and abandon piece after piece – well it’s a chilling cautionary tale.

MB: What enables you to continue – despite angst and doubt? JL: Either it excites you or it doesn’t. The actual process of writing gives what you need – a viable artifact that thrills you. Why would you do it otherwise? Which isn’t to say it can’t also torture you; you can be bored by yourself. At that point – it’s better to do something else.

MB:Did you have a contract for the memoir?JL: I finished the memoir before I got it accepted. I don’t function well when I have to internalize other peoples’ expectations of what I’m writing – it’s enough to deal with my own self-criticism and expectations. To saddle myself with an advance and contract and editor’s expectations is not a good idea. A lot of people operate like that — I can’t.

MB: How did you organize the book? JL: I wrote a very much longer version and hacked it down and just wrote it out. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t all the time consciously trying to shape it and find ways of making aspects of the story more interesting and lively. Sometimes it’s a real struggle to write and you’re trying to figure out every word and sometimes – there were parts that just came, flowed a bit. It wasn’t enormously difficult writing, but it was very emotionally difficult. Sometimes you’re lucky and it comes easily, but mostly I have to grind it out.

MB:In the book you describe a trip to Jerusalem. JL: I felt I needed to go to Jerusalem [for the book] but if I were to put myself on plane it would have felt phony. Then I had an opportunity to do a piece of journalism and that seemed natural and I found myself where I needed to be. It was incredibly thought provoking when I got there. I needed that push, a trigger and it came.

MB:How did this project differ in its creative process from poetry or fiction?JL: This was an unusual project to me. I needed to write for all kinds of reasons in the way it wouldn’t be with a novel and poem. I had a different kind of personal interest.

MB:How did you start writing poetry and shift to short stories and the novel? JL: I started out wanting to be a playwright. When I left university I began to write novels. I got a contract for a novel in my early 20s, which I couldn’t finish. I wasted over a decade. I’d given up. I had to stop. It was consuming my life and driving me very crazy. I wrote stories and then I went on a complete detour – I worked in film. I also did travel and guide books with my wife, which I loved doing. I gave up novels; I didn’t read them and I wasn’t interested in them.

MB:When did you start working on fiction again? JL: I started writing a story in 1998 or 1999. It was a boring story about a creative writing teacher who had writer’s block. I realized not only would no one want to read it – nor would I. I was going to drop it but I changed the character from creative writing to gender studies. And I wrote it in six months without trying – after all those years of failing. I had a short novel on my hands – a real one that I actually finished; that was The Horned Man.

MB:When you’re writing fiction are you also writing poetry? JL: I used to do different things at once, but because of the children (he has two), they occupy much of my life. In practical terms the day is that much shorter for the past 17 years. I used to have the whole day to myself to work on short stories and poems. There’s only time to do one thing so I must stay with it or I lose the thread – one or the other and mostly fiction these days; less poetry.

MB:How do you know when to drop a project? JL: Well, you have to know when to drop, rest, put things aside. Looking back I shouldn’t have struggled with that one novel for 10 years. Maybe I used stuff in later books but I think it was a mistake to spend that amount of time on that one book and not finish it.

MB:Do you think you gained anything from those years? JL: I wouldn’t be the same writer I am now; I might be a better one. If I could go back and give myself advice, I’d go to year two and drop it. I was so locked into it. I don’t know why I was so locked into it. Possibly I projected all my ambitions and aspirations of being a writer into it. Also, people encouraged me. I got a contract to finish – it was a mistake. I definitely wouldn’t do it again with fiction – work with a contract.

MB:Are you conscious of choosing fiction over other forms, like poetry or memoir?JL: I don’t know what sends you in one direction or the other, maybe a mood. I have to say, writing poetry has a special enhanced meaning in your 20s and 30s. The excitement of writing a good poem is very satisfying and the feeling of pleasure when you think you’ve done it well – it feels like a natural relationship with your life – if you have a literary sensibility. Possibly, for me, getting older, some of those things that I want to write about – don’t lend themselves to my poems. Short lyric poems focus on particular emotional experience. As you accumulate more years – see things in terms of longer narrative – you need a form to reflect that in some way. Longer narrative is more appealing to me at this stage. I never wanted to make lyric poetry address aspects of life I’m interested in at this time. On the whole, my poetry was always very personal. I’m slightly more interested in less personal things now.

MB:Can you describe the narratives your speaking about? JL: When I talk about narrative, I’m talking about novels. I began to write short stories and poetry together – short stories are a form more in common with poetry – economy, omission. Short stories can achieve that satisfying level of a poem – with a strong inter-relationship with all parts contributing to the whole. Interesting and with every sentence – precision. I like the narrative interest of a story; you’ve got to deliver several kinds of pleasure. I’m writing longer fiction, longer narrative – not terribly long, but by my standards it’s long.

MB:Why is the novel your preferred genre at this time? JL: I’m interested in books that aren’t categorized by genre. I’m drawn to – Naipaul; his nonfiction is interesting in an imaginative way. He goes on a journey and it’s an extraordinary journey for the reader. He’s interested in the world as a human being in an epic way. I really admire that – not that I could do it. In a way in this book I’ve tried to take a personal experience and incorporate my interest in other things – bigger things. I want larger things to resonate, like the trip I took to Jerusalem. I like doing that.

MB:Are you working on another novel? JL: I don’t know what it is – maybe a novella or short novel. I write bits of things and then they can sit for years. I had something like that that had been sitting and got stuck, but I can now take it a bit further. Getting stuck (sucks); but I eventually take the bits and pieces here and there and decide to see it through to the end.

MB:How do you decide on what or what not to pursue in terms of ideas and your writing? JL: I think if you’ve got something in you that needs to get out it gets out. If it doesn’t it didn’t need to. It could kill you getting it out but you must be prepared for a struggle as a writer.

MB: Can you talk about how you begin a short story or poem? JL: With a poem or short story it’s usually something has happened, or something I’ve encountered. Something’s interested me and I think about. It’s in my mind and I write it in a notebook, but then I stop thinking about it. Often another thing happens and the two – I need a critical mass of images or dramatic events or observations about a character – and then things ignite to get poem or short story. A couple of images that work off each other to send up a freak flair.

MB:Would you tell me about the short story Property [from Besieged]? The first time I read it – it resonated with me deeply – from the opening lines: A small parcel arrived on the first morning of my visit to my grandmother at her flat in Mayfair. I watched her opening it amid the debris of our breakfast. JL: That was the first real story I wrote – or the first one I felt was a real story. It came to me in a kind of state of inspiration one night – wistfully. I’ve never been in that state again. I was ill and feverish. I sat down and wrote it and knew it was a different encounter. I sent it to a magazine and they published it. It was then that I felt I was a writer. I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written.

MB: The character of the grandmother – is it based on a real person? And the apartment? JL: The apartment was my grandmother’s apartment and some of the boy is me. The story came from someone sending something back to someone after many years. It was a rock record – and the guy said I’m sending this to you because I stole your copy when we were at school. I was riveted. I was trying to get into his head – the guy who sent back the record. I realized that the story was about being on the receiving end – how getting something you don’t want brings back portions of your life. I was 23 when I wrote it. I remember it quite clearly. I expected it would all be like that [my writing career].

MB:There’s a level of intimacy in that story. From the start the reader is aware of this deep intimacy. JL: I like that word. I’d like to think there’s that intimate register. I find a lot of fiction rhetorical as if from a PA system. It just doesn’t interest me even if the author is good. There are certain books that come at you along your nerves. Some of my favorite writers are Jean Rhys, who I absolutely adore, and Tolstoy. He’s a giant, and he’s also addressing you intimately. It’s not rhetorical, no great apparatus. It’s direct, simply, but it’s capable of doing big and small scenes. I’m interested in taking that intimate register and seeing how much you can contain. Small-scale drama doesn’t have to be limited to that – Tolstoy’s proof it doesn’t have to be.

MB:You’re very funny, not in a big, in your face way but in a subtle persistent way. Is that intentional? JL: I don’t set out to make any one laugh…

MB: I frequently find myself laughing while reading your work. JL: Glad to hear it, I tell my wife I take the jokes out. I don’t like to be made to laugh. I like to be surprised – that there could be something humorous in a place you’re not expecting rather than a joke.

MB:Are there things you might want to write about but don’t consider yourself capable of writing?JL: There has to be a natural connection. And much has to do with the circumstances in your life. Are you doing this [writing about a subject] to make yourself more interesting or is this evolving naturally and authentically? I don’t know how you navigate that. I have some things I’m interested in writing about and things I’m interested in doing – like trips, but I’m not sure if I have a real connection. I think those triggers come when they need to come and if they don’t need to come they don’t.

MB:What happens to you when you hit a wall with your writing? Do you have ways of pushing through? JL: I bang my head against the wall as long as I can stand or the wall comes down. Sometimes it doesn’t. Some writers say they never hit a wall and they write and it comes. I think most writers expect to struggle. You never stop. You get better at recognizing certain reflexes and difficulty and then other traps spring up. You accumulate some negotiating skills.

MB:Do you have an agent? JL: Some things I handle on my own – like the Guardian pieces and my poetry. If I send to a poetry review I send it myself. It’s a drag. I mean I haven’t been writing that much poetry and I tend to send to editors who are interested – to be sure they’ll read it. Sometimes they want it and sometimes they don’t. No way to get around it.

MB:Any thoughts about a new book of poems? JL: I did write some poems recently. A short book of poems published in the U.K. It’s really short so it’s a problematic proposition here in the U.S. I really don’t know what will happen here [US]. My editor might be interested, but I haven’t been pushing it. I try and not think about it. What can one do about it [the publishing industry today]? Nothing. It is what it is. I feel lucky to have gotten the books I’ve written published. Can’t ask for more than that.

From Water Sessions [Jonathan Cape/Random House, 2012]

Industry BayHere’s your grandson clowning in the ocean; scuttling out of the waves then bossing them back. He looks more like you every minute; beetling his brow in the same mock frown you made. Here’s a hammock without you lying in it; a sea-grape tree without you in its shade. And here’s me, taking the measure of your absence; failing again; stalled like that restless palm topflapping its chicken feathers in the sun while overhead some wide-winged ocean bird rises on the breezes without effort as if to tell me: this is how it’s done…

Madeleine Beckman is the author of Dead Boyfriends, a poetry collection. Her poetry, fiction, memoir, articles, and reviews have been published in print and online. She is the recipient of awards and Artist-in-Residency grants in the U.S. and abroad. She is Contributing Reviewer for the Bellevue Literary Review, and teaches in the Masters Scholars Program, NYU/Langone Medical Center. She has been a Contributing Reviewer to The Literary Review and and a member of the Gallatin Review Advisory Board (NYU). Madeleine holds an MA in Journalism from New York University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Visit Madeleine at Write Downtown.